Travel

I’ve been calling it “road trip still lifes” but it’s sort of evolved to I’m not sure what yet. I’m trying to express the confinement and boredom and general atmosphere felt on a long road trip with friends. And for some reason I like squares right now.

I took these over the weekend on a rip to Gainesville with Christopher, Evan, and Greg.

I decided at the last minute to go with Christopher, Danny, and Bob to Atlanta for a weekend bike polo tournament. This was the weekend of October 10th. I thought it would be really boring just watching them play polo all weekend but it ended up being a lot of fun. It was cramped with all of us in Christopher’s tiny Tercel with 4 bikes on the back and an extra wheel set inside the car. And everyone’s shit. But we made it work. I’m really grateful everyone put up with me taking up the precious extra space they would have had because, of course, I didn’t play polo. It was an uneventful drive other than the fact that it took us about 2 hours to get from Diyno (Christopher’s house) to the FL/GA border which is actually 10 minutes away. You know, stops to pick up the guys, wait for them to pack, load up bikes and stuff into the trunk that the bikes were attached to (not easy), food, gas, stopping again after we realize the wheel covers are blocking our brake lights and turn signals. You know. We stayed at Christopher’s parents house which was awesome because I love visiting there. And they are AWESOME picnic packers. They seriously know what they’re doing.

I took a lot of pictures. Evan let me borrow his enormous telephoto lens for my digital camera and I had to shoot 3 rolls of film for class.

Christopher and I visited his family in/near Atlanta a few weeks ago. (I’m just now getting around to unloading the few snapshots from my SD.) It’s so lovely visiting them. The atmosphere is just so positive and relieving. The air smells so much nicer in Georgia, and the Hills are all so great. So interested in each other (WHY ISN’T THAT ONE WORD!?) and always just down to sit around in the living room to talk and tell stories for just a little while longer into the night. I feel very comfortable and welcome there.

Unfortunately I didn’t take more than just these few snapshots of everyone.

Look at all the love!

The following were taken in Christopher’s sister, Emily’s (& her boyfriend, Chris’s) apartment in Atlanta. We stayed there the night before we returned to Tallahassee. It was such a great place, all IKEA’d out. I hope to have a similar place of my own in a big city in a few years.

Apparently, “now let’s take a SILLY one” means, “everyone open your mouth and flail about wildly!” It works.

I like this one better because it actually looks like things have gotten out of control. None of the contrived silliness.

Finally finished off the roll of color 35 mm film in my Canon this morning. It had been in there since either December or November of last year and I’d been chipping away at it gradually, picking it up every time it felt appropriate. Got it developed and printed today, scanned and cropped them, and here they are!

Above: from the trip Christopher and I took from Tallahassee to Jacksonville two weekends ago to visit my parents, see my brother’s new apartment, and spend time with Morgan before she leaves for boot camp.

Above: yesterday at First Friday in Railroad Square. Twas rainy.
Above: Gaby breaking the plaster (maybe) mold off her cast honeycomb sculpture. These were the first pictures I took on this roll.

Above: not really sure. Random portraits. I’m thinking the one of Gaby on the floor looks the way it does because I attempted a double exposure. Don’t remember, though. Also, I don’t know why I’m getting so many light leaks…

Reminiscing yesterday, digging through digital photos from high school. Found these.

My family and I lived in one apartment and three different houses in Jacksonville. This was the second house. We only stayed there for a year, my junior year of high school. The landlord was really eccentric; he’d had a giant aquarium custom-made for these fish he’d had imported from the Nile and Amazon rivers, elsewhere, too, I think. It was a really great house to live in. Right down the street from my high school boyfriend, a pond with ducks and a paddle boat in the backyard. Just a good time.

I took this in my grandparents’ backyard in Crestline, Ohio when two friends and I visited my Ohio family in tenth grade. I lived in Ohio from about ages two to eight. Six years doesn’t necessarily sound like a significant amount of time, but I’ve found that my childhood years spent there were very influential to my life. Of course I didn’t realize it at the time, but the time my friends and I spent making up “house” games like “teenagers” and “treehouse,” learning to ride my two-wheeler on our short dead-end street, coloring with chalk on the pavement… It was a magical time. The stuff that has permanently defined my rough/feminine/primitive aesthetic.

After weeks of checking craigslist job postings 5+ times a day, printing out the last of my ink’s worth of resumes, and emailing people, I finally got a job. We call it “reception.” But really we form the infrastructure of a certain anonymous pyramid scheme. As far as I can tell, the better I do at tricking getting more people involved, the better my superiors look. I don’t sell anything though, just read a script over the phone for 7 hours straight. As boring and unchallenging and freezing and far from my apartment as it is, it’s easy work and just a relief to be making some money. Hopefully I’ll go to Jacksonville this coming weekend to visit/get my car looked at/get tattooed.

That’s right.
My first Tallahassee paycheck purchase will hopefully be my first tattoo: a beautiful light and airy dream catcher in black and gray on my left upper arm. I’ve gotten so excited about it over the last few months I’ve even dreamt of dream catchers… which I thought was odd. The problem is that I haven’t found a good illustration/photo yet. I have a pretty good idea in my mind though. I’ll have to browse some more and combine elements that I like from different ones.
I’m really excited. I realized it’s because of, number one, how important and significant dreams are to me, and how confident I’ll feel when it’s done. Not because it’s cool to have tattoos, but because I’m placing it so visibly, I see it as a sort of permanent commitment to the non-corporate lifestyle that I’m choosing to pursue. And it’s so me: feminine but not girly, black & gray so as to be neutral and ambiguous, primitive, and dream-related.

Speaking of…
Growing up, and in high school especially, one job that I had interest in someday doing (among astronaut, tattoo artist, ballerina, photographer, and type designer) was wedding planning. I almost went to UCF for Hospitality/Management or whatever they call it (when we called to let them know we were voiding my place-holding deposit check because I decided to go to FSU, they charged me a bloody fee, those backward greedy bastards). Anyway I’m completely happy with my choice of Graphic Design at FSU but I never really let go of the idea. Recently, I thought about the fact that whenever I consider an idea for a tattoo or piercing for myself, I always picture it on my wedding day, and wonder if I won’t look romantic/lovely/bridey. Thinking about that, I realized it shouldn’t and doesn’t have to be like that, and got the idea to start my own non-traditional wedding planning business based on spirituality rather than religion and honoring the marrying individuals’ individuality (hehe). I love the idea of owning my own business… but I have no idea how business works.

In other news, friends and I saw Toy Story 3 yesterday. It was INCREDIBLE. My favorite Pixar, I think. I was actually skeptical at first, thinking three films is just too many for a Disney series (i.e. Aladdin, The Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc.) but I think Pixar just doesn’t mess up. I laughed SO hard (for example, at the way Woody looks when he runs) and cried. Nothing was cliche or predictable, and it was charming and whimsical and fun without being childish or immature. It was just beautiful. The preceding short film reminded me a little too much of my “Outside In” project conceptually, but it was lovely as well, and really cute. To psych up for the premier, I watched the first and second Toy Story films this month and Pixar’s technical progress is astounding.
I want to see it again.

Photographically, I am disappointing myself. It must appear that I’ve done even littler than I have this summer because I’ve been focusing more on medium format and 35 mm experimentation, and I don’t have access to a negative scanner during the summer. Though I admit I have not been shooting much. I went to visit my cousin E.B. in Naples with my family last month, and we went on an air boat tour through the Everglades, where I’d never been, after over 10 years of being a Floridian. I took a lot of pictures there, but as usual, only liked about 10% of them enough to share. Here are a few:

Well. I’m not sure what’s left. I feel like I had something else to say, but now I’ve forgotten. Adieu!